If that stroke of luck isn’t good enough, read this story about Michael Paul Larson learning the patterns of the board in Press Your Luck, an 80s game show, and walking out with a bunch of cash and prizes. First, the story is absolutely true. Next, read the amazing story about how he won $110,237 in cash and prizes back in June 1984 (that’s $229,782.08 in today’s dollars and back in an era where the prizes were much much smaller).

Deal or No Deal is a popular television game show in which the contestant picks a case out of the hundred on stage. That case is theirs to keep and the “Banker” tries to buy that from him or her. Then, as the game progresses, the contestant picks numbered cases to be revealed and removed from the stage. As the game progresses, a large board tracks which cases have been removed and, based on probabilities, the “Banker” offers to buy the contestants case. Normally, the show has only one million dollar case but in an effort to make things exciting, started offering multiple million dollar cases.

In this particular episode, there were 7 million dollar cases. Watch what happens:

The part that boggles my mind was when one of his three friends, perhaps his wife or sister, says – “You came to bust him, and you’ve done it….” I thought she was giving him a reason to stop, but then inexplicably adds “One more time…”

As my wife always tells me, sometimes you have to take a step back and be thankful for and appreciate everything that you have. $603,000 is a lot of coin.